


Playing for Keeps

by UnluckyStar57



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, Body Image, Bullying, Community: HPFT, F/F, F/M, M/M, Organized Crime, Quidditch, magical casinos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6852163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnluckyStar57/pseuds/UnluckyStar57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pool is anything but a game. Play with caution, because you're playing for keeps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shooting Star, After Midnight

The Shooting Star Casino was a vast, glittering den of temptations and devilry. Written on the patrons’ faces were the signs of vice and virtue; too much alcohol consumed, too much money wasted on the slot machines. There at the edge of Muggle and Wizarding London, the two worlds collided in an array of kaleidoscopic fancies. There were Muggle amusements—poker, slots, roulette—but they all had a Wizarding twist. The dealers levitated the decks and a gambler never knew when his hand of cards would blow up in his face—literally.

It was a place where alcohol flowed freely at the bar and at the game tables, sometimes a little _too_ freely when some sot knocked over his glass. That was the hook: first drink free, and then you were caught on the stuff. The blazing firewhiskey assaulted your senses, hazing your mind and putting you in that blissful state where inhibitions no longer existed. The bacchanalia raged every night, people getting drunk on the dance floor and getting drunker when they lost at cards. The nights passed in a blur of rainbow colors, blistering cacophony, and the scent of aged liquor.

But in the back of the casino, removed from the pandemonium by a nondescript wall, the real player of the night performed her dance. I was the hustler, the disco dame who drew in unsuspecting customers and beguiled them out of their money and time. I danced on a stage with no boundaries, weaving intricate patterns with my body and mind.

I was the pool player, con woman of the century, endowed with the ability to drive any man wild with just one stroke of the cue. Eyes wild, dress tight, voice smoky with the fake promise of lust and adventure, I spun a web of lies that could trick even the most astute male.

In the depths of the evening when things began to happen, there was only one other pool player in the hall, one solitary soul who probably lost at the Exploding Snap table and wanted to play a few rounds before he had to Apparate home to his unforgiving wife. He was a sorry-looking bloke, hair disheveled and eyes bloodshot, though it was probably less from the whiskey than it was from losing sleep. Freddy Weasley, my boss, always said that those are the worst patrons: not the rowdy drunks, but the lucid losers who just wouldn’t leave.

My sequined dress clung to my skin as I sauntered over to his table. “Wanna play?” I purred, beginning the game that could only end in my victory.

The man looked at me with bleary eyes, but as he took in the cognac-hued tightness of my outfit, his face began to clear. He shifted stiffly out of his crouch, shuffling his cue from his right hand to his left. The wedding band on his finger glinted in the dim light and I smirked to myself. Someone was going to be in trouble with his wife when he got home.

“Sure, I’ll play,” the man grunted, a slow smile creeping across his broad, unshaven mug. “I could probably teach you a thing or two, sweetheart.”

I reached behind me and grabbed a cue off the wall. “I’m sure you could, daddy-o. Should I rack them up, or will you?”

He looked uncertain about this, which wasn’t surprising. If I racked them up, I got the “upper hand,” but if he racked them up, he would be “subordinating himself” to a woman. What he didn’t know is that either way, he was going to lose.

Flashing me a slightly lecherous smile, he pointed. “The rack’s over there, darling. Let’s see what you can do.”

I turned away, rolling my eyes at his innuendo-ridden speech. Lately, all the men who haunted the pool tables had been like this. They couldn’t accept the fact that a woman was issuing them a challenge, an oddity made worse by the “uniform” that Freddy forced me to wear.

I silently Summoned the balls from their pockets and tucked my wand back into the front of my dress. The man stared at me as I do so, a blatant act of voyeurism that, in my younger days, would have made me blush. But that night, I pushed my annoyance aside and racked the balls, yellow one at the head of the pyramid, black eight dead center, solids and stripes alternating all around. It was the standard racking practice, giving no player an edge over the other.

The man was impressed. “Well, you know your stuff, love, but how well do you play?”

I batted my eyes as I had been trained to do. “You’ll have to find out for yourself, won’t you?” The flirtation was sickening, but it is a man’s world, after all. Let them think that a sexy maiden wouldn’t bring them to their knees—figuratively, of course.

But this was only a game of pool, and the man had taken on a swagger that I was sure he didn’t have before. “I’ll break,” he announced, assuming the studied stance of a man who had played pool more times than he can remember.

A light thud as cue connected with plain white ball. A crack as ball collided with pyramid. The dull thunder of an array of colors rolling around the table. Three balls—solid green six, striped orange thirteen, solid purple four—ambled slowly into the pockets, taking their time.

He was pleased, and silently went for a shot at the solid yellow one, missing by a mile. Perhaps he was more inebriated than I had originally thought. At the very least, his failure to spot my trap for what it was indicated that he wasn’t of sound mind, anyways.

“My turn,” I intoned softly. I crouched low against the table, a parody of myself, and took a shot at nothing in particular. The cue ball went wild, scattering the remaining balls about, but none went in. If the man were more observant, he would have noticed that my elementary shooting technique was due to the fact that I was not right-handed, as evidenced by the waving of my wand. But he wasn’t, so my ruse was allowed to continue.

A few more strokes from my cocky companion, and nearly all the solids had been knocked into pockets. The one that remained was the most crucial, and he leered at me as he angled his body in the perfect position to knock it home.

“Top corner pocket,” he declared, complying with the ancient rule of the last stroke of pool. “Looks like you should’ve stayed home, doll.” And with that, he slammed the eight ball into the corner pocket.

My look of disappointment was completely fake. “Ohhhh, I thought I almost had you beat!” I cried, feigning disappointment. He approached me, skirting the table with a mincing step for someone with such a wide girth.

Offering me his hand, he chuckled. “Well, you didn’t, did you? I used to beat all the lads at pool in my school days. There’s not much anyone can do to beat _me,_ that’s for sure.”

I shook his hand, trying not to think about its steamy dampness or where it might’ve been before it made contact with mine. “Yes, you certainly got me,” I giggled. “But I don’t want you to go!”

A look of surprise crossed his face. It must’ve been a long time since a woman paid him much attention. “You don’t?”

“No!” I exclaimed. “I want to play again, but this time, I don’t want to play for fun.”

“You want to lay a wager on it?” He looked positively befuddled by this. The casino’s typical gamblers were male, and it was plain to see that in his mind, the idea of women and betting didn’t mix.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” I said conspiratorially. “I bet you… Five Galleons that I win our next match.”

The befuddlement doesn’t lift, but as he tapped his beefy chin with one stubby finger, I could see that I had him. That was always the way they came. Hook, line, and sinker.

“That sounds like a fine idea, sweetheart. I could use some more gold,” he finally said.

I smiled and gave him a slow wink. “Excellent. You rack, I break.”

~*~*~

“Just one more game,” the man begged. “I can’t go home like this.” It had been two hours, and we had played five games, my technique growing better and better every time. For the first three, I let him beat me, offering him a larger wager each time. Like a moth to a flame, he couldn’t resist the allure of asserting dominance, taking gold from a woman who seemed to have forgotten her place.

But as he grew more distracted by the thought of money, my right hand stopped hindering my technique. The last two games were quick knock-outs, and the wager just kept growing. Like a spider in her lair, I had my juicy little fly completely trapped at all sides, unable to escape my web.

I sighed dejectedly. “I’m sure that I’m just having a stroke of beginner’s luck, but I can feel it ending. I’ve had such a nice time with you. I tell you what: Let me play one more game with you, and this time, it’s double or nothing. If you win, I’ll give you double the money that we’ve wagered so far. If I win, you can give me the amount of the wager, no more or less. Does that sound fair?”

At my talk of beginner’s luck running out, the grin returned and he shoved a hand through his grungy hair. “Yeah, that sounds fair,” he leered. I could almost hear his thoughts: _Yeah, fair for me!_ Men at the casino loved it when they thought they were getting a good deal from the devil, but what they didn’t know is that the devil is in the details.

For instance, the fact that I switched my cue from my right hand to my left as he broke for the last time. No balls fell into the pockets. He was getting tired, but I was only just beginning. Forcing the smile on my face to remain neutral and vapid instead of conniving and vengeful, I aligned myself with the white ball. I took my time, because there was no hurry to win this game.

This was my favorite part of every evening.

Breathing deeply, I focused in on the nondescript ball, the one that was responsible for connecting with all of the others, a medium between me and victory. With a deft backward pull of the stick, I shoved it forward and drove the white ball right into a cluster of balls that his weak break was unable to separate.

They scattered, the striped red eleven immediately rolling into the top right corner pocket and the others—striped blue, solid green, striped purple, solid red, striped orange—rolling about the table in a dizzying dance. The three stripes made contact with other balls, knocking another stripe in before rolling in the opposite direction, each aligning with a pocket.

I didn’t bother to suppress my wolfish grin now. This would be an easy clean-up. Aiming for the striped blue ten, I sent the balls flying once again, scoring two more stripes, the nine and the fifteen. Several of the solids had fallen into the pockets, but I ignored them. In pool, knocking your opponent’s balls in only caused you to forfeit if you didn’t knock in any of yours first. My opponent would certainly not be wielding his cue stick again tonight.

It was time to bring everything to a close, and I quickly glanced at my opponent to notice his shocked reaction before I tapped the cue ball and watch it work its magic. The three remaining stripes—blue, purple, and orange—all toppled gently into the bulging pockets.

“I guess I’m just really lucky tonight,” I smirked, taking aim at the last, most important ball. “Right middle pocket!”

I heard the man snort from where he watched, as much out of jealousy as it was out of disbelief. The middle pockets were the most difficult ones to make, and the eight ball was nowhere near either of them. I liked to think of this move as my grateful farewell to my victims, one final blow before they left me with their purses empty. However, the truth was that I was just a showoff.

But a damn good one, at that.

A lithe motion, the tap of cue on ball, the resounding _crack!_ of white ball on black. The gentle thunder as the black ball rolled around the table in angles and lines, finally coming to rest in the right middle pocket.

The look on the man’s face was priceless. “But—I—you—we…” he stuttered, unable to even string a coherent sentence together. I flashed him a winning smile. My pool skills often had that effect on men.

“My luck just didn’t run out!” I gushed, still playing my part. “But a deal’s a deal, and you owe me three hundred and twenty Galleons.” For every game we played, the wager was doubled. He was lucky that I took pity on him and was content to accept the current wager as my winnings.

The man sighed, taking out his moneybag. “Bonnie’s going to kill me,” he groaned, dishing out the Galleons. He’d had a fairly good night at the slots, but his luck had run out. All of his money came back to me, and I worked for Freddy Weasley.

I smiled at him as he counted the gold out in tall stacks. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” I winked one last time for good measure, and his smile made another appearance. This time, though, it wavered. Men had been known to cry when Fair Fortune decided to frown upon them.

With a heavy sigh, he finished counting out the gold and stood up. “You’re a natural, love,” he admitted with a shake of his head.

“Oh, you’re sweet,” I giggled, my voice saccharine on my tongue. The sooner that this guy cleared out, the better. It was well past one in the morning, and I was ready to get out of my itchy sequined dress and enter the land of dreams. “Will I see you again?”

“No,” he grunted, grabbing his hat from a table. “I’m done with this place, at least until Bonnie says I can come back.” Ah, now that he’d lost to a woman, he finally realized who has the true power. I was sure that Bonnie would give him a good hiding when he staggered in during the wee hours of the morning. It was a thought that only sweetened my triumph.

The man exited the room closing the door softly behind him. Music pulsed by the dance floor, reverberating around the casino and rattling the walls of the pool room slightly. I sighed and sat down, slipping my feet out of my five-inch heels. At last, I was alone with the red walls and my hard-earned gold.

“Brava,” said a voice from the shadows, shattering my state of blissful relaxation. There was a sound of sarcastic clapping as the hidden observer emerged from the gloom, and my veins filled with ice when I saw his face.

It seemed that the night was not over for me yet.


	2. A Face from the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had come back to haunt me.

“Don’t you know who I am?”

Of course I knew who he was. It had been a very long time since I last saw this man, my tormentor, my bully, the shadowy figure of my nightmares, but the smirk, the arrogance, and the elegance of his form had not changed. The son of the Wizarding World’s own Messiah and the star Keeper for the Kenmare Kestrels had fame and adoration heaped upon his head since his birth, but I was not one of his avid fans. To me, he was not a saint, but a devil, a ghost of the past come back to haunt me once more. He would not have his way with _me,_ for years of torment and anguish taught me to suppress my fear and replace it with anger.

I did not dignify his arrogant question with an answer. Even after all the time that had passed, my head was filling with those old familiar fears. I forced them back into the dusty corners of my memory. The past belongs to the past, and I was not who I once was. I could not let fear define me. 

He began his slow approach, the dim light playing on his dark hair and causing his hazel eyes to glitter eerily. Despite my defiance, my protests of strength and fearlessness, I was spellbound. I was not infallible, after all—and perhaps I never would be. I could vaguely feel my stilettos dangling from my fingertips, forgotten, as I rose from my seat. He smirked again and his eyes roamed up and down my sequin-clad body, taking in my smudged makeup and my disheveled blonde hair. It was the gaze of a predator, as if I were a particularly delectable antelope standing in the path of a ravenous lion. (Or in more modern terms, a fine cut of meat on the butcher’s block under scrutiny of a masculine steak connoisseur.) Regardless, it was obvious that he liked what he saw, but he only saw the surface. My spirit was no longer as breakable as glass.

Gaining confidence in my position—this was my home turf—I broke the spell of the ridiculous waiting game that he was trying to play with me. “How long have you been in here?” My voice came out soft, but the tone of warning was unmistakable.

It only caused his smirk to widen. “Long enough.” He closed the gap between us, and though there was still space, it was too close. Too close…

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, not meeting his eyes. I looked over his shoulder, avoiding his burning hazel gaze. Once, I melted under that gaze, cracked under pressure, was vulnerable. I knew that I could meet his eye if I chose, but I preferred to pretend that he scarcely existed in front of me. Perhaps he would take a hint and get lost. Or perhaps my aloofness would make him even more persistent.

It was the latter. A light touch on my shoulder. A scent of aged mead and spicy peppermint. More of that dizzying closeness that practiced seducers seem to employ to such a great effect. So much went into one simple move, and I could feel my shoulders tense up as he leaned in. His voice tickled my ear, a whisper so soft that I could barely hear it above the thumping bass outside. “I saw what you did to that man.”

I side-stepped to avoid him, hoping that he did not notice my shudder. It was all too apparent that he was attempting to seduce me, but his charms would be better used on a more naïve girl. “What of it?” I responded, more sharply this time.

A look of confusion flitted across his face, but it was quickly replaced with that interminable leer as he matched my movement, one step behind. “You tricked him.”

“Yes, well?”

“You know how to play this Muggle game.”

“Obviously.”

My sarcastic drawl was too much for him this time. He took a step back, one eyebrow raised, regarding me with bemusement instead of lust. “Don’t you know who I am?” he asked again, his tone sounding more like that of a petulant child than a grown man.

I turned my head in his direction, but again I stared right through him. The spell was completely shattered; he had no power over me. Perhaps he never did. “Why should I know who you are? Do you know who _I_ am?”

His brow wrinkled in confusion. “No? Have we met before?”

Just like that, the world stopped as I realized that he had absolutely no idea who I was. But why should that have shocked me? The years spent in agony in the corridors of Hogwarts, so vivid in my memory, seemed to have faded from his. Back then I was weak and defenseless, and he had the upper hand at all times.

But oh, how I had changed since then.

I looked him directly in the eyes, my mouth quirked into an ironic smile. “Not at all. I was merely reciprocating your question in the hopes that the relevance of this conversation would begin to make itself known.”

The confusion persisted in his expression. “You really don’t know who I am?”

Ah, poor little rich boy. The firstborn of the most venerated of all modern wizards was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father’s fame and his mother’s Quidditch prowess opened doors for him that no mere mortal could ever walk through. At Hogwarts, he was the apple of the professors’ eyes and the darling of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. For his entire life, the world had roared his name in celebration and triumph, exalting him like a minor deity. That someone should not know his name was inconceivable, ludicrous.

It was to my advantage that I remembered what he forgot, that all his memories of me were washed away by the ceaseless waves of time. The little girl he taunted and oppressed was all grown up but the names that he had for me were still etched invisibly into my skin. There never was a better—or a sweeter—time for revenge. 

It was my turn to smirk. “Am I _supposed_ to know your name?” 

He opened his mouth to respond and then paused, reconsidering his answer. If he said yes, he would sound arrogant. If he said no, he would seem foolish.

I waited for him to speak, feeling rather vindictive. If someone had told me four years ago that I would one day face off against the person who caused my worst fears and actually gain the upper hand, I would have died of laughter. But the years passed, the tables turned, and I now had a few aces up my sleeve. My fragile self of long ago was encased in a shield of diamond, impossible to wound and fatal to touch. It was those vulnerable years that pressurized me, and it was this man who was a catalyst for my transformation.

The struggle on his face was almost comical. Apparently, he never learned how to play cards properly, for he could not keep up his flimsy poker face. Underneath his cocky façade, he was only an amateur trying to play the game of the gods.

“My name is James Potter.” The truth burst from his lips like a gust of wind, as if he had been holding it in for a long time. I quirked an eyebrow at him, and he sheepishly continued, “Surely you’ve heard of my dad, Harry? He’s kind of famous…. And my mum, too. She was a Quidditch player, like me. I’m a Quidditch player. Don’t you follow Quidditch…?”

His ungainly, juvenile speech trailed off on a note of incredulity. For someone who lived his entire life under the public eye, giving speeches and attending parties with damsels that he wooed, he was perfectly inarticulate in private. Especially in this situation, in which I was completely unimpressed by his nepotistic credentials. He was used to women swooning at the sound of his voice and loud applause when his name was announced, but he had no effect on me. I would not allow him to have any effect on me. In that instant, I had stunned him better than any spell ever could. 

“I most certainly do,” I replied, placing my stilettoes on a table top. I brushed his shoulder—very purposefully—as I walked past him. “But I’ve never heard of you.” Never before had I realized how exhilarating it could be to make someone feel insignificant. The look of dismay that overtook his features was my reward for the hell that he put me through for all those years.

“Wha—but, how? You—I mean, if you follow Quidditch, you’ve heard of the Kenmare Kestrals, surely, and I’m their Keeper….”

“I support Puddlemere United,” I interrupted him, flicking my wand nonchalantly to Summon the fifteen colored balls out of their pockets once more. This impromptu recapitulation of the grisly past started off unsteadily, but now that I had taken him down a notch, I was in my element. It was time to play another game.

“What?! They’ve got an _awful_ record this season! Their Beaters don’t even know how to….”

“Fancy a game of pool?” I asked, ignoring his rambling about foolish Quidditch rivalries and tossing him a cue stick. (Which he caught almost reflexively due to his years of skill built up on the hallowed Quidditch pitch.) “I was planning on going home for the night, but I can make an exception.”

His hand crept toward his eyes, reaching for invisible glasses. I remembered that tic of his from our Hogwarts years, when the phantom spectacles were real. It always happened when he was talking to a pretty girl—perhaps the only time in his life that he felt nervous. If he knew who he was dealing with, he probably wouldn’t be doing that. It was for the best that his memory was so selective. (It must have been because of all the alcohol—mulled mead, wild nights of bacchanalian celebration and equally wild nights of dismay at a loss….) 

“Actually,” he began. “I can’t.”

“Why? Scared that you’ll get your arse handed to you like that poor bastard did? And by a girl, no less!” I mocked him. “My, what a tragedy that would be!”

“No, it’s—I—”

I cut him off with my approach, shoving his cue stick towards his chest. “Well, Potter? Will you play or won’t you?”

“I don’t know how to play pool!” The words echoed through the empty room and he winced and looked away from me as the truth finally came out. “I—I mean—I made this bet, and if I don’t learn how to play pool, bad things are going to happen, and I mean _really_ bad things, so….”

I could barely contain the grin on my face, but for the sake of the game of cat-and-mouse that we were playing, I arranged my expression into one of utter apathy. (That night, I transformed from mouse to cat, and I couldn’t have been happier.) “I’m not seeing the point here, Potter.”

“I mean, I came here to see if someone knew how to play pool, and I thought that drunk man looked like he knew what he was doing, but then you tricked him, so….” he paused to catch his breath and then mumbled something that I could not hear.

“Come again?”

“Would you teach me how to play Muggle pool?”

Well, this was a plot twist. My insides flared up with anger and I yanked the cue stick out of his grasp. “No, Potter. I will not teach you how to play pool.”

He shoved his hands through his hair as I turned to put the cue sticks back on their wall hooks. “W-why not? Just a minute ago, you offered to play—”

My laugh came out higher than I expected. In fact, it was much less of a laugh than it was a cackle. Perhaps I was a true witch, after all.

“Potter, you might be used to getting your way in life—you’ve got a famous father, after all—but that does not mean that everyone has to do as you ask. How many fangirls do you have because of your last name? How many people cheer your name at Quidditch matches? Oh yes, I know exactly who you are,” I spouted sardonically. “And it is precisely that which compels me to deny your request. I asked you to play pool so that I could puncture your massive ego once more, but I am _not_ going to spend my time teaching some spoiled, rich, arrogant _bastard_ how to play a sport that he didn’t even know existed until the necessity arose for him to care about it.”

My explosive speech overwhelmed him. With a few lengthy strides he was in front of me, grabbing my shoulders. As he spoke, his eyes glint maniacally. “You don’t understand! My cousin is a gambler, a cheat! He knows things about me that could ruin my reputation! Can you imagine me, the son of Harry Potter, with sordid secrets exposed to the world?! The _Daily Prophet_ would have a field day! If I don’t win this bet, I might as well be dead!” He shook me as he spoke his last few words, whether unconsciously or to emphasize his point, I did not know. But the closeness was too much, everything was too much, and I spun out of his grasp, leaving him with empty hands.

“Why should that be _my_ problem? I am just an innocent civilian whom you attempted to seduce and then accosted with words. There is no reason why I should be sympathetic to your plight.”

With that, I snatched my stilettoes off the table and turned to march out of the room. I should have gone home hours ago.

“Wait!” At his voice, I turned back and he shrank away, as if he had been reaching out to me. “What’s your name?”

“James Potter,” I snapped. “You don’t deserve to know my name.” Every good witch and wizard knew that there was power in the naming of people and things. He knew my name once, years ago, but he used it against me, perverting it so that it came to define who I was. I could never let that happen again.

Still, he was persistent, undeterred by my shrewishness. “No, please! I—I can pay you. I’ll do anything if you’ll teach me how to play this game. _Please_ help me.”

I regarded him coolly. For the first time since he made himself known to me, I felt perfectly calm. No, I felt numb. My insides were like ice as I stepped back in his direction, looking up at him with utter disdain.

“James Potter,” I said calmly. “Nothing on this _earth_ can persuade me to help _you._ ”

And with that, I was gone, walking away from James Potter, away from the pool room, away from the Shooting Star Casino.

It felt an awful lot like I was walking away from a war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow... how long has it been since I updated this story on this site?? Shame on me, I guess!
> 
> For those of you who read and are wondering what my OC's name is, trust me, you'll find out soon! I actually wrote this waaayyy back in 2014, and I made the very intentional decision of leaving her name out until she got away from James. That's just how I roll. Hope you enjoyed, even if the suspense about her name is just killing you! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This story was first started by me in 2014. It was first posted on HPFF, but I wanted to see what AO3 was like! I'm very glad to be here. Thank you for reading. :D


End file.
